# Tangible benefits of space exploration?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tangible-benefits-of-space-exploration/415216>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [August 11, 2007, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tangible-benefits-of-space-exploration/415216 "2007-08-11T02:30:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\
**Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tangible-benefits-of-space-exploration/415216/61 "2007-08-14T19:18:47Z")

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[QUOTE=Lumpy]  
Any foreseeable large-scale human presence in space is going to depend on permanent settlers living in closed-cycle habitats, whether sitting on a planet’s surface or floating free as space colonies in high orbit. Launch costs will make a “ship everything in and rotate people regularly” approach unaffordable So why hasn’t something as elementary as a human-algae recycled atmosphere been demonstrated yet?  
[/QUOTE]

I posted a link sometime back in MPSIMS about an Aussie who did just that in a shipping container at the bottom of a lake.

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**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tangible-benefits-of-space-exploration/415216/62 "2007-08-16T22:23:29Z")

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Jim Burke of the International Space University in France [urges the creation of a “Lunar Ark” to preserve human civilization in the event a large asteroid or comet strikes Earth.](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070814-lunar-ark.html)

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**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2007, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tangible-benefits-of-space-exploration/415216/63 "2007-08-17T09:28:41Z")

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[Spaceward Games](http://www.spaceward.org/) announced as part of the effort to get the space elevator off the ground. (Heh.)

[Brief essay by one of the members of the Mars rovers team on the importance of **manned** spaceflight.](http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=AC7D7AC8-E7F2-99DF-30CBD96DD56E957A&chanID=sa016)

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